-The Indian Express The UPA’s cash transfer scheme — delivering over Rs.3.2 lakh crore in subsidies and welfare programmes to the poor, directly to their bank accounts — has raised fears in many quarters about the capacity of a rickety state apparatus to cope with messy implementation issues. Our collective self-confidence about being able to implement any new policy is so low today, we seem to be paralysed by the mere...

-The Hindu The direct cash transfer scheme launched a year ago in Kotkasim for providing kerosene subsidies has pushed legitimate beneficiaries out of the system The nondescript town of Kotkasim in the Alwar district of Rajasthan had its Peepli Live moment after it was chosen for a pilot experiment with “direct cash transfers” of kerosene subsidies. According to the district administration, the scheme led to net savings of 79 per cent in...

-The Hindustan Times Some time ago I visited a Dalit hamlet in Rewa district. It was hemmed in on all sides by the fields of upper-caste farmers, who refused to allow any approach road to reach the hamlet. There were short roads inside the hamlet, but they stopped abruptly at the edge of it. The hamlet felt like an island, surrounded by hostile territory. I wondered whether any other country still...

-The Hindu Cleansing political parties and elections of illegal money is the first step towards tackling the evil of graft Corruption is nothing but a reflection of the distribution of power within societies. The country is where it is because the political system is self-perpetrating and no party is accountable to anyone except a coterie of people that dominates all decisions. Unless the political system is accountable, going after individual cases of...

-The Business Standard No full stops for forcible acquisition, poor compensation Lawmakers have been tinkering with a new land acquisition regime for a cynically long number of years. However, there is no change at the ground level. The news that a displaced woman in Madhya Pradesh immolated herself last week, starting a Chita (funeral pyre) satyagraha, was buried below the fold in the last page of newspapers. Meanwhile, more and more gross...